English Ivy (Hedera helix) is a beautiful, lush vine often used as an ornamental plant in homes, offices, or on walls. It grows rapidly and spreads through its roots along walls, trees, and the ground. Its leaves are dark green, glossy, and oval, with three to five-lobed lobes. English Ivy thrives in low light, making it a popular indoor hanging plant. It helps create a beautiful and fresh atmosphere.
Scientific Name: Hedera helix
Some Basic Information about Hedera helix (the hanging plants)
Habit: Perennial, evergreen climbing or trailing herb, 10–30 meters in height if given suitable support, forming dense and bushy mats or vertical coverings
Root: Adventitious, arising from nodes along the stem; these roots allow the plant to attach itself to surfaces such as walls, trees, or rocks
Stem: Climbing, woody, branched, flexible when young, and becoming tough with age; covered with rootlets that aid in attachment. When mature, stems may become thick and sturdy
Leaf: Alternate, petiolate, simple, usually 3–5 lobed (on juvenile creeping shoots), and ovate to lanceolate on flowering branches; margin entire or slightly wavy, stipulate, with leathery texture and dark green color marked by prominent paler veins
Inflorescence: Solitary or clustered axillary umbels, each with multiple small flowers
Flower: Bracteate, complete, actinomorphic, bisexual, usually epigynous; flowers are small, yellowish-green, and fragrant
Calyx: Sepals 5, gamosepalous, forming a short, inconspicuous tubular structure, with valvate aestivation
Corolla: Petals 5, free or slightly fused at base, greenish-yellow, rounded at apex, imbricate aestivation
Androecium: Stamens 5, free, inserted at base of corolla, anthers oblong and yellow, dehiscing longitudinally
Gynoecium: Ovary inferior, bicarpellary, syncarpous, axile placentation; style single, stigma capitate
Fruit: Berry, small, globose, black to purple when ripe, containing 1–5 seeds
Floral Formula: Br ⊕ ⚥ K(5) C5 A5 G(2̲)
Systematic Position
Division – Angiospermae
Class – Dicotyledonae
Order – Apiales
Family – Araliaceae
Genus – Hedera
Species – helix